Talk:Chiptune

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Contents

[edit] Chiptune Revival

Chiptune has become very popular as genuine music in the UK recently. worth a mention I think. Sabrepulse also deserve reference somwhere in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.111.33.109 (talk) 17:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from article

I took the liberty to remove the recordlabels as that was blatant commercial advertising and didn´t provide any useful information. Looking at other genre´s wikipages I noticed that we have an unusually big linkfarm here. Perhaps a radical trim is in order?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.250.21.85 (talk • contribs) 12:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi there,
I agree that we have waaaay too many links on this page, however I don't feel that it is necessary to remove the labels section in its entirety. Some of the labels you removed are certainly notable within this (re-)emerging genre (8bitpeoples.com, micromusic.net, x-dump, etc.), and as such, they should be included. I don't think that they constitute blatant advertising as well, and I would like to wait until a consensus is reached before we go a head and blank the labels section. -- Ryanfantastic 03:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed the News-links as it seemed not particularly relevant or containing any information that couldn't be obtained otherwise.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.250.21.85 (talk • contribs) 12:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from article

Trimmed down the lists in the article.

[edit] Modern chiptune artists and groups

  • Dubmood
  • 8bitpeoples
  • beepdealers
  • GOTO80
  • Gijs Gieskes
  • Aleksi Eeben (Heatbeat)
  • firestARTer
  • David Sugar (logicbomb)
  • YM Rockerz
  • She
  • ZX Spectrum Orchestra
  • Nullsleep
  • Bit Shifter
  • Lo-bat
  • Covox
  • Snoopdroop
  • Neotericz
  • Snowrobot
  • Hey Kid Nice Robot
  • xik
  • Sidabitball
  • Ogge
  • Zabutom
  • Jake Kaufman (Virt)
  • Binärpilot
  • Rugar
  • Anamanaguchi
  • RushJet1
  • Crazy Q
  • Psilodump
  • Paza
  • Karawapo
  • Cerror
  • M-.-n
  • Hally
  • Hein Holt
  • Chibitech
  • VideoHomeTraining
  • Stage7
  • Funky Fish
  • nula

[edit] External links


Hagbard Celine 12:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Role model

The link to Role Model goes to the article on what it means to be a role model, not the band. Can anyone find out any info on the band, maybe make a new article so we can fix up the link? It's not a band, it's a person. He made LSDJ. 80.127.64.214 14:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bizarre Commentary by 81.224.97.188

Technology: (Noone will really consider it a chiptune, just because it's made using a synthesizer that occasionally spits out a sawtooth here and there. The "old" (If there really is such a thing) would rather be the sample-based tracked music, rather than the psycle-sequenced sawtooth songs.)

Style/basics: (This stopped being true 1987 or so. Everyone has their own opinion about this, but in my own, chiptunes as they are today, where formed during the late 80s, and 90s, chipmusic, by European demo scene wackos, using the Commodore 64, Amiga and Mid-90s and later on; the PC. Chiptunes today are, as I see it, 99% of the time composed in trackers, using samples, either to emulate the sound of some oldschool hardware, or just to sound poppy in the Loonie/Radix way, and never, ever, except in some rare cases of retardedness, do we use white noise for drums. Who's using a ADSR envelope controlled synthesizer by the way?)

Style/oldsk00l: (This is also, in my opinion, very wrong, and probably written by some American professor on the subject "wacked eurotrash chip-kids". There is no such thing as "oldsk00l", and no-one has been using MOD seriously without also using their Amiga. PC users had the luxury of eight or more channels, almost since forever! (Atleast since the introduction of usable Trackers on the platform. Today everyone uses Fasttracker 2 or Impulsetracker clones, unless they cheat and use the real deal. This "oldsk00l" music we hear of isn't really that recent, not all the time atleast. People have been doing this for like 15 years, it's not that they managed to come up with the awesome idea to create chipmusic with samples yesterday). I would also like to recommend [1].)
(Good luck in rewriting, Mr Author) -- 81.224.97.188 11:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


I thought I'd paste it all here, since it could be legit discussion. I left a note on the IP talk page, and I'm about to revert to last changes by 84.144.87.122, unless those are a problem too. -- Crnk Mnky 16:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Although it's not appropriate to have in an encyclopedia entry the comments largely appear to be correct. It was probably written by someone who is connected to the demoscene, if only loosely, in frustration. While I don't want to keep his comments on the page I feel some of the points he made are valid. More specifically, I'd like for the article to reflect that chiptunes have evolved a lot and aren't as attached to old technology as they are to a style kept alive during crossovers to newer and better hardware.

Also, not that this was pointed out in the "bizarre commentary", I'd like for the article to not generalize the chiptune style as much, as it is both confusing and quite frankly saddening to see artists such as Psilodump, who take so little from the chiptune style as they do, included as icons of this genre.

SkogsRickard 01:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Program to make those chiptunes

I've been wondering what program was used to make those chiptunes... I would like to do some myself..

So, does anyone know and if they do, provide a link? =\

--Datavi X 12:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

There's really no short answer to your question, since all sorts of different programs have been and are being used. Do you "just" want to make chip-sounding music, or authentic, "real" chip music on old hardware?
There's been lots of various music programs written for older computers, and a few for consoles/handhelds too. If you want to make Gameboy-sounding chip tunes, get a Gameboy and look for programs to make music for it. If you want to make C64-sounding chip tunes, get a C64 and look for programs to make music for it. If you want to make Atari XL-sounding chip tunes ... well, you get the idea. Google it.
There are programs for the PC / for Windows that lets you make music for these older computers too, at least for the C64. GoatTracker comes to mind.
There are also VST plugins that emulate the C64's SID chip, and the Atari ST's YM2149 chip -- and probably many others that I don't know about. That's not something I can say much about, but might be an option if you have a good setup already, and want to play with chip sounds.
Or use a tracker. There's been some pretty good stuff made in Fast Tracker 2. Picking something more recent, Renoise seems interesting. Adding effects isn't for the purists though.
But my basic advice would be: Look at what you and your friends already have in the basement, see what you can get cheap, and look for software with that in mind. If you're starting from scratch, you might want to look for a C64 with a disk drive if you can get it cheap from someone you know (the drives can be pretty expensive otherwise; also diskettes will be a problem), or an Atari ST (STFM/STE come with built in drives). Then start pestering people on forums and IRC channels.  :-)
magetoo 23:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


Ok thanks. =) Even though of what you said kinda baffled me =\ Would those programs be handy if you wanna convert say an NSF file into a GBC-music file?

--Datavi X 09:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

In regards to specific software, LSDJ and Nanoloop are two popular trackers for the gameboy Ryanfantastic 10:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

There is also a program called Paragon 5 BeyondTracker (not sure its exact name), used by that company to write chiptunes when they made Gameboy games, in an interface graphically similar to that of ImpulseTracker/Screamtracker. The Paragon 5 website (www.paragon5.com) no longer seems to have it available for download, unfortunately. There is a free BuzzTracker generator machine that also simulates the Gameboy and its sound (including the inherent limitations of 4 channels and what those channels are for), although I think it could have been designed better. --I am not good at running 20:33, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


--[[Shawn Phase]

First of all, i dont believe any of this stuff worth of being deleterious. this is a flourishing scene and many of us myself included have spent years and years to try and promote this to make it a verifiable genre. this is not something that is based on opinion, this is something that is based on knowledge within the genre, if those of you who are editing these fields which i continue to readd because you feel its not worthy, then you are doing those who desire to know more about this type of music a big disservice, i would encourage those of you to not remove any entries to this. thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shawnphase (talk • contribs) 04:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi Shawnphase. Thanks for your interest in the chiptune page. We are in the process of Cleaning up the artist list on the page. The list is not meant to be a catalogue of all chiptune artists. Rather, it is intended to be a short list of notable artists representative of this genre. I feel the list should be completely re-worked to achieve this goal. If you wish to compile a more complete list of chiptune artists, why not create a List of Chiptune Artists page and link to it from the chiptune article? I have reverted your last edit because it does not seem to be inline with the stated goal of the artist list. That and I hate red links. Please post further comments under Talk:Chiptune#Artist_cleanup.
Thanks! -- Ryanfantastic 06:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


--[SP]--

while i think it would be an ok idea to make another page, why would it be necessary to limit the contents of this page? this is a worldwide genre, that is constantly expanding. with bands like Anamanaguchi, and myself (temp sound solutions), it's been an upward battle and it has taken years to be able to make this a viable form of art here in the states. it started in the netherlands as far as people performing out in clubs et al, but the mainpoint of what i wanted to bring up is that to bring any deletions into a list of artists who NORMALLY PERFORM out in public. to make any unnecessary deletions in such a flourishing genre is very counterproductive, and i find making any more of a link off of this is part of the problem with the way wikipedia is handled, theres too many kill-happy readers of all types here and of course knowledge is very impartial, i dont find that it is necessary here.

this combined with the entire deleterious nature of people on wikipedia has soured me to editing any further. namaste —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.33.25.199 (talk • contribs) 09:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that Shawn. However, if someone is new to a genre and wants to find out more about it then overloading them with links isn't the way to educate them. By only including the truly representative bands, readers will more likely be able to find accurate information about the genre, and the entire scene will benefit. As a fan of 8bit music, I would like to thank you for your passion for the genre, but ask you to try understand that we are trying to make the Chiptune page a truly encyclopedic entry of the highest possible quality. Geedubber 10:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

--[shawn phase] please, dont get me wrong, i'll still read, and i'll still do what i can to pass on information to others so that they can possibly do it, i simply dont have the time. if you do a google search on shawn phase, go in my mp3's section on my webpage, and you'll see that i have an overly large discography of music, with as much of an output as mine i dont have the time to use the internet much, but others will. i invite you to see for yourself.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.33.25.199 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Discussion

From what perspective is this article written? I'm asking because I never before heard the word "chiptune" being used to describe this kind of music; instead "chiptune" has in my experience only ever been used to mean "MODs with short waveforms" (that resemble oldskool music chips' sounds). I think I can back this particular usage up with plenty of examples; it's very common on Aminet, in its module collection, for example. (and on the Amiga scene in general too); but I really can't think of many instances of the term meaning what the article states, other than from "kids today" who seem to think that "it sounds the same to me". (no offense intended)

The term "chip music", which is the entry I originally jumped to (and got directed to "chiptune" from) is another one I've never heard, but it does seem more appropriate to me.

("Of course, back in the day, we never called it that..." - just "music for the C64", "music for the speccy" or something, or plain "computer music".)

magetoo 14:29, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)


I did some edits:

Replaced "audio co-processor" with "sound chip" (the "co-processor" link was irrelevant and confused things) replaced "module" where (in)appropriate (modules didn't even exist until the Amiga)

"Audio co-processor" is also terribly wrong when referring to the sound chip. The SEGA Megadrive (Genesis) had a Z80 audio co-processor that controlled the DAC and FM synth. They are two different things!


And I zapped the second paragraph under "Technology" and moved parts of it out:

"In those days, memory and storage space were limited and valuable, driving some composers to create very small modules. As little data as possible was used to create a sound; for example, repeatedly looping 64 bytes of data to produce a constant tone. These were mostly used in crack intros, which had to be squeezed into any spare space on the disk of the cracked software."

.. "repeatedly looping 64 bytes of data" is completely irrelevant with the POKEY/SID/YM chips since they had internal oscillators and never depended on sample data in any form, which obviously is what the sentence refers to. I reused it in the next paragraph instead. The part about crack intros seems to me to fit perfectly in the Amiga era (limited disk space, bootblock "intros") rather in the C64/Speccy era (one-file tape rip games), so I moved that down too.

So there is not much text left to describe the music of the old sound chips, but what is there is more correct, IMHO.

I realize that what I have done is mostly from a "chip tunes are small MODs" perspective, and I believe I could write a much more logically consistent article if I pulled all references to 8-bit era sound chips, but someone must have put it there for a reason (right?) so I won't. Maybe the article could be split, or divided into parts..

magetoo 15:55, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I removed Machinae Supremacy from the list of modern chip groups. The only things that their music has in common with chiptunes is some of the video game-themed songs, the video game covers and the SIDstation they use.

[edit] Bitpop, Gamewave, Picopop

Should Bitpop, Gamewave, or Picopop be merged/redirected into this article?--Geedubber 23:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name Cleanup

"Chanchacorin" Manami is a nickname for Matsumae Manami. (Her maiden name was Goto Manami.) Therefore, it would make sense to have them on the same line (or simply to remove the nickname).

Reference: http://www.snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?profile=composer&selected=279

[edit] Artist cleanup

The page was starting to look like a link farm. I've cleaned it up and am moving all redlinks to the talk page. If you really think the person is representive of the genre then add them back and leave a comment on the talk page. Maybe a List of Chiptune Bands and Artists is required instead of keeping huge list in main entry. Geedubber 07:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice work Geedubber! There's a few artist here that I might add back, but I don't want to put a bunch of redlinks on the page... I would be in favour of including some artists from 8bitpeoples.com (nullsleep, bit shifter, mesu kasumai) as they are quite noteable for this genre. I am also in favour of getting rid of a bunch of links under Chiptune#External_links, some are blatant advertising, others are nn. Ryanfantastic 02:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

removed Ceephax Acid...there is no basiss for argument that he is a chiptune artist, falls into the Acid House category... Shawn Phase 4:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


  • Manami Ietel
  • Manami Matsumae
  • Yoshihiro Sakaguchi
  • Chanchacorin Manami
  • Ogeretsu Kun
  • Anthony "Ratt" Crowther
  • Maniacs of Noise [2]
  • Thomas Mogensen (DRAX)
  • Matthew Simmonds (4-Mat)

[edit] Artists

[edit] Trimming down the list of artists and staying true to "real chip"...

Has anyone at all listened to Psilodump?

If so, how can you call that chip? It's about as chip as the average synth-pop. Mentioning this guy in the same context as great artists/groups such as Chris Hülsbeck, Yuukichan's Papa and Rob Hubbard feels awkward and wrong. If you take the time to listen to Psilodump you'll find there's not much chip about it. I'm not even sure he makes all his music with trackers of any kind.

Sure, he is/was(?) chairman of "Chipmusikfrämjandet" in Sweden, but that's all the chip there is to him.

When Slagsmålsklubben is more "chip" than you, you don't belong in an entry for chiptunes. When dubmood isn't in the list, Psilodump definitely shouldn't be there, even though he's got an entry on the Wiki... We should clean this up a bit.

PS. I find myself wondering, since Psilodump is in that list, how many other non-chippers are in that list?

SkogsRickard 01:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why exactly did this happen?

Im very dissapointed at all the usefull information cut from this article. So why was all of this erased?

Perhaps you should be more clear about what you are talking about. 64.230.4.4 22:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Locked

This Page Has Been Vandaled 2 Times. Locked. Offensiveandconfusing 14:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Surely this is over the top? The Avenged Sevenfold page was vandalised constantly for months before it was protected. XdiabolicalX 17:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MODs

In the TECHNOLOGY section, chiptunes are compared and contrasted to MODs, but at the end, under filetypes, MOD and XM is listed as a possible chiptune extension. Do we want to include those as chiptunes? I doubt it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thenimaj (talk • contribs) 16:17, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

It is debatable. The later MOD formats had chiptune "modes" where synthesised instruments could be used. Many of the 40Kb intros used these formats of MODs to save space. The inclusion depends on how strictly we wish to define "chiptune". Are they specifically tunes performed on custom synth chips or does processor-based synthesis also count? --Monotonehell 07:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)